100 ELEMENTAEY AGEICULTURE 



Away they go to other flowers, leaving some of this 

 pollen on every plant they touch. When they go 

 in deep for the honey, they leave pollen on the pistil 

 just where it is needed. 



Pollen from Other Plants. Plants bear the strong- 

 est and best fruit and seeds when the pollen has 

 been brought to them from another plant. In a 

 cornfield the ears on one stalk may receive pollen 

 from its own tassel and from a dozen others stand- 

 ing near. Sometimes when a farmer wants corn for 

 seed, he goes about a certain part of his corn lot 

 before the silks come out and cuts off the tassels 

 of all the poor stalks. ^In this way he allows the 

 ears to receive pollen from only the strongest plants. 



Kinds of Plants. There are thousands of differ- 

 ent kinds of plants in the world. Perhaps there 

 was a time when the world was young when there 

 were very few plants. But as they spread over the 

 earth they found different kinds of homes. Some 

 seeds were gradually carried into cold regions, and 

 others into hot places; some found wet spots, and 

 others came into deserts. Some found homes on 

 high, rough mountain tops where the storms raged 

 about them, while others fell into low, shady nooks 

 where they were protected. 



How They Came to be Different. As the plants 

 were slowly carried into such different kinds of 

 homes, they kept fighting for life and food. Often 

 many plants were struggling for air and sunshine 

 on the same little spot; and only those that proved 



